The theory of reinvestment

Abstract

This review provides an overview of a diverse, temporally distributed, body of literature regarding the effects of conscious attention to movement. An attempt is made to unite the many different views within the literature through Reinvestment Theory (Masters, 1992; Masters, Polman, & Hammond, 1993), which suggests that relatively automated motor processes can be disrupted if they are run using consciously accessed, task-relevant declarative knowledge to control the mechanics of the movements on-line. Reinvestment Theory argues that the propensity for consciousness to control movements on-line is a function of individual personality differences, specific contexts and a broad range of contingent events that can be psychological, physiological, environmental or even mechanical.